Log in

Politics, and serious for once, and not Italian. - Since you're gone my empty arms have nothing left to hold

and your memory cannot keep me warm but it never leaves me cold

words of wisdom

Now Tom said "Mom, wherever there's a cop beatin' a guyWherever a hungry newborn baby cries,Where there's a fight 'gainst the blood and hatred in the airLook for me Mom, I'll be thereWherever there's somebody fightin' for a place to stand or a decent job or a helpin' handWherever somebody's strugglin' to be free, look in their eyes Mom you'll see me."

The highway is alive tonight, but nobody's kiddin' nobody about where it goesI'm sittin' downhere in the campfire light, with the Ghost of ol' Tom Joad

So, I haven't said a thing here about this mainly because it'd have turned into some ugly rant. Not to mention that if I think about this and then about the next voting round here on Sunday I want to throw up and for once I feel grateful for my country, but that's a whole other issue. I've done everything that was advised to help on Twitter and I'm gladly re-posting this hoping that meanwhile someone does organize some march or something here because I'd love to do something that isn't just over the Internet. I don't know when I'll answer to any comments because of my exam tomorrow but I will at some point. Re-posting this from another journal where things were phrased definitely better than I ever could phrase them.

If you are reading this right now, you have more luxury than someone in Iran could ever hope for right now. If you are watching TV or a video on youtube, updating your status on Facebook, Tweeting, or even texting your friend, you are lucky. If you are safe in your home, and were able to sleep last night without the sounds of screaming from the rooftops, you need to know and understand what is happening to people just like you in Iran right now.

They are not the enemy. They are a people whose election has been stolen. For the first time in a long time, a voice for change struck the youth of Iran, just as it did for many people in the United States only seven months ago. Hossein Mousavi gained the support of millions of people in Iran as a Presidential candidate. He stands for progressiveness. He supports good relations with the West, and the rest of the world. He is supported with fervor as he challenges the oppressive regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

On Friday, millions of people waited for hours in line to vote in Iran's Presidential election. Later that night, as votes came in, Mousavi was alerted that he was winning by a two-thirds margin. Then there was a change. Suddenly, it was Ahmadinejad who had 68% of the vote - in areas which have been firmly against his political party, he overwhelmingly won. Within three hours, millions of votes were supposedly counted - the victor was Ahmadinejad. Immediately fraud was suspected - there was no way he could have won by this great a margin with such oppposition. Since then, reports have been coming in of burned ballots, or in some cases numbers being given without any being counted at all. None of this is confirmed, but what happened next seems to do the trick.

The people of Iran took the streets and rooftops. They shout "Death to the dictator" and "Allah o akbar." They join together to protest. Peacefully. The police attack some, but they stay strong. Riots happen, and the shouting continues all night. Text messaging was disabled, as was satellite, and websites which can spread information such as Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and the BBC are blocked in the country. At five in the morning, Arabic speaking soldiers (the people of Iran speak Farsi) stormed a university in the capital city of Tehran. While sleeping in their dormitories, five students were killed. Others were wounded. These soldiers are thought to have been brought in by Ahmadinejad from Lebanon. Today, 192 of the university's faculty have resigned in protest.

Mousavi requested that the government allow a peaceful rally to occur this morning - the request was denied. Many thought that it would not happen. Nevertheless, first a few thousand people showed up in the streets of Tehran. At this point, it is estimated that 1 to 2 million people were there. Mousavi spoke on the top of a car. The police stood by. For a few hours, everything was peaceful. Right now, the same cannot be said. Reports of injuries, shootings, and killings are flooding the internet. Twitter has been an invaluable source - those in Iran who still know how to access it are updating regularly with picture evidence. People are being brutally beaten. Tonight will be another night without rest for so many in Iran no older than I am. Tonight there is a Green Revolution.

It's too early for me to coherently gather my thoughts on this, but excellent journal re-post -- it was a great read. I've been following this as well, and it's just incredible (in an awful, terrible way) to imagine what it's like being over there right now, and what those people are dealing with.

It really is a great post, I had been wanting to re-post it since I had seen it. And yeah, awful and completely crazy and I just hope it doesn't end like I fear. And I wish I could do something. *sigh*

Well, acknowledging what's happening and being informed is the first step, right?

It's also been really interesting -- if I can use a word so detached for something that's affecting so many lives -- to follow it from a media and censorship perspective. Media's my professional industry, so it's crazy to see what's being done -- and what's coming out of that situation -- that couldn't have before the advent of things like Twitter.